So here begins Charmed's long, long journey to its eventual demise. I always pegged the arrival of Wyatt as the true death knell for Charmed, not so much because of him as a character (although he sure did drive his fair share of asinine episodes), but because the show rarely reached any decent heights after his arrival. While seasons one through four were always a little schizophrenic in terms of quality, here's where the show becomes almost uniformly awful, with only a half dozen great episodes here and there. And there's a lot more Charmed to go, kids, so be warned.Phoebe is absolutely repulsive here, obsessively fawning over her nephew like a crazy woman, and later getting all defensive when her new boss calls her on it. Yes, it's great that you have a nephew. Yes, he's adorable. But why exactly do you need to drop everything to be with him? Gah. There could have been some interesting character work with this if the show bothered to mention Phoebe's demon spawn last season (losing a child could be a strong explanation for her clinginess), but that never happened.
Jason Dean eventually became another archetypal 'personality-free Charmed love interest', but he's surprisingly engaging here, at least compared to some of the boyfriends in later years, the Nick Lachey's and Joe Millionaire's. But the story is still annoying.
The A-plot is routine, but it does feature a reliably kooky performance from legendary genre vet Grace Zabriskie. Shame she's been saddled with a Seer knock-off stuck in a flat storyline, though. Baby's First Demon is a pretty shallow episode in general, full of sisterly annoyance and rent-a-villains. Blah. D+
Crimes of Fashion Paige's undercover outfit rivals Phoebe's Happily Ever After ballgown for the worst in the series: a blue latex dominatrix ensemble with hideous fright-wig on top. It's like staring Satan right in the face.
Credits
Guest stars Grace Zabriskie (The Crone); Rebecca Balding (Elise Rothman); Andy Mackenzie (Suck); Nicholas Sadler (Leech); Jack McGee (Hawker); Eric Dane (Jason Dean)
Writer Krista Vernoff Director John Kretchmer
Agreed with you on this one. So many nice ideas that were horribly executed like the demon market and a potentially cool recurring villian who was SUCH a Seer knock off. I always wanted the Crone to stay for the rest of the season as the Big Bad. Would have saved us the horror that was the Titans and that embarrassing two-parter finale.
ReplyDeleteI love what you said Max about Phoebe being clingy because she lost her own child. Why do we always come up with better ideas that the so-called "Writing staff" this show had? They're plain asinine sometimes. That arc would have been brilliant but of course continuity was never this show's strong suit.